The report found that on average, drug companies continue to be perceived as having a so-so reputation. In fact, people's opinion of the pharmaceutical industry overall has improved since 2015.

Yet Kasper Ulf Nielsen, an executive partner at the Reputation Institute, told Business Insider that these average ratings hide some of the more interesting aspects of the results. For one thing, people tend to have polar opposite views of individual companies, either ranking them as having an "excellent" or "poor" reputation. The company with the highest reputation was Bayer. Also, young people aged 18-24 had a significantly lower impression of pharmaceutical companies than did older people.

Check out the Reputation Institute's drug company scores, ranked from lowest to highest:

1/

14. Pfizer. RepTrak Points: 65.9

Pfizer, which is known for drugs like Lipitor and Viagra, was ranked the second-most familiar of the 14 drug companies analyzed by the Reputation Institute. Pfizer didn't fare as well as its pharma counterparts in terms of its reputational ranking, though they did score better than in previous years' rankings.

Survey respondents ranked the company's workplace environment, citizenship (or responsibility to stakeholders), and governance as being the worst compared to all the other drug companies.

2/

13. Bristol-Myers Squibb. RepTrak Points: 66.0

Glassdoor

Bristol-Myers Squibb, the New York-based pharmaceutical company known for its diabetes and heart-related drugs, didn't have much of a change in perceived reputation in 2016 compared to 2015. BMS reputation scores were particularly low when it came to the company's leadership and innovation reputation.

3/

12. Novartis. RepTrak Points: 66.7

Thomson Reuters

Switzerland-based Novartis rounds out the bottom three with a slightly higher reputation than last year. Novartis' reputation score was brought down by lower governance and citizenship scores.

4/

11. GlaxoSmithKline. RepTrak Points: 66.9

Thomson Reuters

GlaxoSmithKline, headquartered in the UK, raised its RepTrack score in 2016. One reason for this is that survey respondents said they perceived the company as having better overall performance and innovation.

5/

10. AbbVie. RepTrak Points: 67.0

AbbVie, the North Chicago-based company that spun out of Abbott Laboratories in 2013, was one of the two additions to this year's Reputation Institute report. It scored its lowest reputational rankings in products and services, leadership, and performance.

TIE 8. Eli Lilly. RepTrak Points: 67.1

People's perceptions of the reputation of Eli Lilly, the Indianapolis-based company known for its diabetes medications, didn't change too much from 2015 to 2016.

7/

TIE 8. AstraZeneca. RepTrak Points: 67.1

Thomson Reuters

AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company known most widely for its acid reflux medication Nexium. Its reputation scores were relatively middle of the road across the reputational subcategories.

8/

7. Allergan. RepTrak Points: 67.5

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Allergan, the other newcomer to the Reputation Institute list and the maker of Botox, spent much of its first quarter with plans for a mega-merger with Pfizer. Nevertheless, survey respondents said they did not see the company as very innovative, and these low ranking reduced the company's overall score.

9/

6. Sanofi. RepTrak Points: 67.8

Sanofi, a French company known in part for its diabetes medicines and vaccine program, rose through the reputation ranks from #10 in 2015 to #6, scoring particularly high in terms of how people perceived its workplace.

10/

5. Merck. RepTrak Points: 68.3

New Jersey-based Merck jumped from #11 to #5 in 2016. The makers of Gardasil, the vaccine designed to protect against the sexually transmitted infection HPV, and the drug accredited with helping former President Jimmy Carter get cancer-free, consistently scored high in all of the reputational subcategories.

3. Novo Nordisk. RepTrak Points: 68.5

Thomson Reuters

Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company, dominated the Reputation Institute's reputational subcategories of citizenship, governance, and innovation, bumping its reputation ranking from #7 in 2015 to the #3 spot this year.

13/

2. Abbott Laboratories. RepTrak Points: 68.7

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Abbott Laboratories, which makes everything from nutrition products to diabetes monitoring systems, came in second in terms of its overall reputation.

14/

1. Bayer. RepTrak Points: 70.6

Bayer, the German company that has its hands in everything from pharmaceuticals to consumer products like Aspirin and Alka Seltzer to agriculture products, came out on top as the only company on the list with a "strong" reputation (as opposed to average).